EPT
What separates mortal from god? Surely not a divine realm because for every god that cloisters themselves in their own plane, there is another who walks among the Children of Iris. Nor is power solely the purview of the deities because there are tales of mortal legends that rival the gods, though few are so presumptuous to challenge the divine and there are none known to me who could battle the greatest of deities. Wisdom is a virtue shared and ignored equally by gods and mortals; both the divine and the mundane have their share of sages and fools. No, the divide between mortality and divinity is the Anima.
The Anima is the spark of life lit together by Xa and Dys during the Age Unseen, when only gods inhabited Iris. Anima was a gift shaped for the First Children, the Elves and the Tieflings. When imbued with it, they could wander Iris, comprehend its wonders, and select their own paths through their immortal journeys. Yet the Anima warped when Rogash delivered death onto Iris’ people. For the first time, Anima was lost, and with that loss, the world writhed. To help Anima survive the onslaught of the Breath of Plague, Carth fractured it, rendering Rogash unable to tear the Anima from its hosts. Instead, when death came to the Children of Iris, their fragments of Anima would remain upon the planet and bring to it new life. The lives of the Children of Iris were no longer infinite, but neither could the precious Anima be stolen by Rogash. From then on, the Shards of Anima survived within the Elves and Tieflings and, eventually, within all the myriad races of Iris.
It is the Anima within all of us that separates us from the gods. Why? Because the Anima provides us with the gift of our will and the power to shape our own destinies. In their wisdom, the High Gods forged the Anima so that their Children could seek glories they could never attain, embark upon journeys they could never complete, and build marvels they could not imagine. A god has power, purpose, and a place, yes, but a mortal has freedom, choice, and limitless potential. A River King will only ever be a River King: he will trickle, flood, drown, and overflow until the day his waters wither into dust. A mortal who is born by a river may become a fisherman, but so too can she become a knight, a merchant, a bandit, a priest, or a lord. And when that mortal passes on, her Shard of Anima will remain upon Iris and give life to another mortal creature. When the River King’s river is no more, that god will never live again.
The Anima is our singular blessing. It is the one thing we possess that no god will ever have.
The separation of choice and power, of freedom and destiny is a theme with which I’ve been fascinated lately. It’s a pivotal focus of my Pokemon campaign, and now it’s an essential element of Iris. The origin of my fascination with willpower and choice is probably Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. One of the reasons it’s a favorite anime of mine is because of its focus on the tenacity of the human will. This theme is important because it provides an answer to a basic question: why would you want to play as a mortal character in Iris? When gods populate the world, what is it that distinguishes mortals and their adventurers from the exalted ones? The Anima is the narrative answer to that question. Mortal adventurers on Iris leave their homes to make a difference in the world because they are the only beings on the planet who can. Gods are constrained by divine purpose; they live within a belief, an idea, or a conviction and they cannot separate themselves from that design. Mortals are not so constrained. The Anima is the narrative affirmation of one of the most appealing elements of games like D&D: on Iris, you can do whatever you want. Of course, you might have to battle armies, depose kings, defy gods, and travel to the unknowable corners of Iris to do so, but such grand tasks are all within your grasp if you possess the courage to reach.
A discussion about the importance of free will is as good a place as any to discuss alignment in Iris. Alignment, in general, is a decent way to understand a general view of how a character might act, but, as a strict system, it lacks nuance and tends to pigeonhole characters. In fact, it’s as restrictive to say a character must act a certain way because they’re a half-orc or a dwarf as it is to say they must act a certain way because they are Lawful Good or Chaotic Evil. Certainly, NPCs (and possibly other players) will always have certain expectations of a character based on who they are (or what they look like), but it is not a DM’s place to enforce the words in the alignment column as they would the numbers on the dice. The keeper of a Shard of Anima always has a choice, so alignment should be taken with massive heapings of salt whenever possible. Any sentient creature is owed the opportunity to follow their heart’s desires, and if that heart defies the alignment they chose or were assigned, so be it.
There are, of course, a few (semi-)exceptions to this perspective on alignment flexibility. The primary one (as always) are classes that require specific alignments: primarily Paladin, but also Cleric to a certain extent. A Paladin’s code is an essential part of their class, so violating that code should be punished. However, such punishments should only be employed when the infractions indicate a true departure from the Paladin’s moral direction. Mistakes, short shifts, and brief failings are hardly atypical for any mortal creature*, and players should not be punished for preventing their characters from turning one-dimensional. The same can be said for Clerics: gods frequently enforce a particular code of conduct for their devoted followers, but even the most severe gods should not be so strict that the game stops being fun. Another appropriate place for stricter interpretations of alignment is in the characterization of mortal societies. Perhaps not every orc is Chaotic Evil, but you can certainly characterize a bloodthirsty, war-crazed, and hateful orc tribe as a Chaotic Evil one. The applies equally to a True Neutral circle of Druids or a Chaotic Good village of halflings. No one would argue that the Tiefling Empire is Lawful Evil, and it may even remain that way forever. However, the possibility that even these examples could change one day should not be entirely dismissed. Finally, there is a single case in which alignment should be absolute: beings without a Shard of Anima, such as gods. A god cannot change what it is or what it will be, so it will be the same alignment from the day it is formed to the day it is no more.
The only mechanics that these philosophies about alignment impact are the magics that directly concern alignment, such as Detect Good and Evil. On Iris, these spells are heavily influenced by the caster’s own opinions. If they would believe something to be good when witnessed in person, then it will register as good to such a spell. If not, it will register as evil. It’s possible that these spells are less valuable when they cannot register absolutes, but detecting absolute good is impossible without a definition of good, and I’m not about to try and tackle that in an blog post. If two spellcasters cast a Detect Good and Evil spell and receive varying results, perhaps they should discuss the conflicting directions of their own moral compasses.
In the next installment of Building Iris, we shall visit the First Children of Iris: the Elves and the Tieflings.
* Even Sturm Brightblade was seduced by evil THAT ONE TIME.
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